Father,

Song: Scorpions - Winds of Change

Father, I am forgetting my childhood.
I am losing the memories I had held so close to my heart;
Of your strong shoulders and how they felt when I laid my head on them.

Of the rough hands that enclosed mine that I knew so well.

So well, in fact, that when I held another father's hands,

In my childish thrill, my rushed endeavour,

I knew the second my small soft hands landed that, they weren't yours.

Now, I hold on to your arms like a girl playing dress up 

And my mother's heels still fit me loosely.

Father, how is it that I'm losing some of the moments that meant the most to me?
Like how you would lift me up off of the car seat and how the cold air swept under my legs,

Like when you read all those stories right before bed;

The comfort of a low and calm voice, 

The warmth of my sisters and my brother all under the same blanket,

All still a melody, a scene that puts me to sleep.

I remember coming down to you when the pitter-pattering on our steel rooftop and the thunderous storm shook me awake.

I thought we might just be facing death

But you taught me how the rain, the thunder and the storm worked and helped me sleep instead.
Or when you would come back from work 

And I'd run up to you to get the chocolates you would always bring home.
I never liked chocolates all that much, father, but because of you, I can keep them down.
Nestle, 

Milky bar with a soft strawberry centre,
Cadbury, 

Disney characters in white chocolate on a brown milk chocolate background,
And the cotton candy sheets that melted on my tongue and turned into bubblegum.

Father, how did our car smell again?
I've been buying all the ones I can find but they cannot smell close to what you had.
The aroma of new leather, cheap air freshener and the smell of the hospital that you carried.

The radio playing classic rock songs - songs my 13-year-old self never understood;

Songs with guitar solos, heavy instrumentals and lyrics that I could never make out.

Father, I must be getting old,

At 20, they are melodies and tunes,

Lyrics and artistry that I can now comprehend. 

Father, I was 10 or perhaps younger
Sitting behind you in the backseat, never worrying and never caring where we might go.

I wore a red skirt and a pink shirt with faded characters on the front.
I stood in front of a stone railing, looking at you who was always behind the camera.
My hair short, my frame small, and my dreams big - always very big.
The city glistened behind me but you shined most.
Then the years just skipped forward so easily.

Father, even the painful moments are dying down;

Waiting for you to pick me up after school till my legs went stiff,
Searching among the crowds for our old car, every dent, every scratch a depiction of the memories I had in them,

Your routine entrance in my room or the kitchen when I was busy with school work,

The stress and pressure constantly looming in my head.

Forcing my legs to move away from you when you dropped me off at the boarding school,

And then the ease with which they ran when you called me back.

All those months in isolation and so much loneliness

All dead, yes, all dead, all killed,

When I would call you and you would let me cry;

All surrendered, indeed, all lost, all gone,

When you stood in front of my school gates, that fateful summer.

Father, I am losing you.

I'm still a child but they're making me grow old.

My hands are still searching for yours when they fear,

And my eyes still search for yours when they are lost.

There is no one to drive me around when I slip away from the world.

When I ache, there is no one to listen to me.

The world cannot love me, father,

It has tried and it keeps trying

But it cannot love me half as much as you have.

Father, I still have some ways to go.

I keep making pit stops because I fear I cannot take on what the world has to offer me.

When I hit a bump in the road, I cower, I hide.

I fear this is all I'll ever be.

Father, I'm growing old and my years pile on top of yours.

When you look at me, I see my childhood.

When you sit and you stare and you enjoy a cup of green tea,

I remember the youth - yours and mine - that slipped away.

The world is dreadful and time is no different.

Even then, father, you must stay.

You must stay a little while, father.

There is happiness alive still.

Even though it cannot compare to the happiness,

That blissful, unforgettable, irreplaceable happiness,

That you have so lovingly made and kept for me.

~ ៷